phones and not a time to be taking a shower or in the bath. people have been known to get electrocuted that way. we're tracking the showers and thunderstorms. we'll have all of it coming up throughout the evening. >> impressive. thank you so much, jeff. breaking news right now. a husband and wife are under arrest. they were found in the car belonging to a hercules mother of four who was found murdered at her home last saturday night. but are they suspects in susie ko's death? it's not an easy answer for the victim's family. kris sanchez is here with what we know about the suspects' connection to the crime. >> reporter: the husband and the wife are not suspects in susie ko's murder yet, but hercules police detectives are on their way to king county, washington, tonight, to ask them why they were in that murder victim's stolen car. and this story is about as bizarre as it gets. 24-year-old darnell washington and his wife, 25-year-old tania washington were arrested about 9:00 this morning after a seatac, washington, police officer discovered they were in

the blue subaru outback wagon stolen from susie ko's home in hercules. the retired mother of four was found beaten and stabbed to death on her home on friday. this morning when the officer tried to approach the coupe until the stolen subaru, the wife smashed into a patrol car and fled the scene. eventually she got boxed in, and then the husband got in the driver's seat, rammed several police cars repeatedly and unsuccessfully. the two were eventually ordered out of the subaru by police at gunpoint. now after darnell and tania washington were in custody, investigators discovered that the couple had been on a crime spree that started in southern california on august 28th. that's when darnell washington escaped from san bernardino county jail with his wife's help. five days later on september 2nd, darnell is suspected of shooting and wounding with a shotgun an l.a. county sheriff's deputy who approached him in the city of south el monte in the san gabriel valley. now the couple is suspected also

in a number of other crimes, including carjacking and robbery between southern california and northern california. on october 5th, susie ko was killed in her hercules home. >> it's a very big break. and we've said right along that finding the car would be one of the key pieces of evidence that we need to help us try to solve this case. and particularly since king county was able to find suspects in the vehicle, that gives us even more of a lead than if we had found it parked on a street somewhere. >> reporter: now again, hercules police are not calling the husband and wife suspects in the homicide of susie ko, but they will question them as soon as they are able. we reached out to susie ko's family, and they tell us that they are emotionally exhausted, but that today's arrests bring them a small sense of relief. >> thank you so much, kris. now to a story you'll see only on nbc bay area. for the very first time, the mayor of san jose sat done with the police union to discuss thorny issues of pays, morale

and mention reform, and they did it in front of our cameras. that gathering happening during the taping of our weekly show "communida del valle." >> it's no denying that there is a rift between san jose city hall and the san jose police department. so i wanted to bring both sides together. >> reporter: for the first time since that rift began a couple of years ago, the mayor and police union sat at the same table, and they shook hands. the mayor says it's not his job to negotiate contracts under the city charter. >> would you like to see, that sit down with the mayor and the administration and not the negotiating team and say okay, let's -- we're not going negotiate a settlement here, but let's talk one to one about the issues. >> yeah, we would welcome that. >> reporter: the half-hour conversation was cordial, yet

pointed at times. >> would you recommend a new recruit to san jose police force? >> if he had other options, no. >> well, that's disappointing. i'm sorry that they dent recommend it. we have a great department. it's one of the best police departments in the country. >> reporter: the union admitted the cost for the city to pay officers' pensions was getting out of control. >> you've mentioned to me in the past that you consider yourself also part of the problem because as a city council member, when the bargaining unit approached the city you voted to authorize whatever increases in pay and benefits. >> i agree there is plenty of blame to go around. and i voted for a lot of contracts that i wish i could do over. >> reporter: the union says its relationship with the mayor is not irreparable, that they're still willing to work with his administration. and that at least for a half hour, both sides sat at the same table. >> i'm sorry that they've taken it personally, but i understand that. >> i appreciate the opportunity to come here and discuss it. it's nice to see it from the mayor's side obviously. and i hope that we can find a way to get together, get back to

the table and come up with some real solutions to the problems we have. >> if you want to do it right here we can negotiate. the cameras will be off. >> tonight at 6:00, we'll see what the mayor says about the traffic ticket a police officer gave him, and about the search for a new chief in the midst of low morale. you can watch the entire half hour discussion on our show comunidad del valle. some breaking news to show you. check this out. this is west oakland, some video. our chopper spotted this person. he is clearly riding on an atv or four-wheel vehicle, weaving in and out of traffic, driving wildly. at this point we're trying to confirm if authorities are chasing him, or what exactly is going on. but he is driving erratically, and it could become a dangerous situation. we're going to continue to monitor it, and we'll bring you the very latest and let you know the outcome of this atv wild ride. back on the job.

san francisco sheriff ross murkarimi reinstated after the board of supervisors declined to uphold official misconduct charges filed by mayor ed lee. this stems from a new year's eve incident where he bruised his wife's arm. nbc bay area's jodi hernandez spoke with the sheriff one-on-one and joins us live from san francisco with the latest. jodi, when does he officially start? >> reporter: well, murkarimi says that's up to interpretation, and it is his interpretation that officially begins right now. that is why murkarimi returned to his offices here at city hall this afternoon to begin the transition of once again taking the helm of the sheriff's department. >> i am anxious, eager, and gratified, and immensely humbled by the last ten months. >> reporter: reinstated sheriff ross murkarimi was all smiles as well-wishers stopped to congratulate him as he made his way back to work. >> it's time to heal. you know, and it's not about win or lose and what side or me

being reinstated or not being reinstated. i think it's time to heal. it's really nice that we all rise above i think this experience, which i think has been agonizing for all san francisco. >> reporter: murkarimi took time to talk with nbc bay area before he returned to the office. he says he is exhausted but ready to get back to the business of being sheriff. >> and i'll honor all of the publicly elected offices that the city requires us to do so. this is what a mayor does. >> reporter: mayor ed lee says he'll work with murkarimi, but he is not at all happy with the board of supervisors' decision to reinstate him. >> i'm disappointed at these four individual supervisors who i think found their way to find an excuse. this is not what i believed to be qualities of someone holding the office of sheriff of the city and county of san francisco. >> looking in the mirror and just not happy with myself, but doing everything i possibly can

to become that better man, better husband, better father, better public servant. a lot of soul-searching, a lot of introspection. i can only be a better person for all this. >> this afternoon the district attorney of san francisco george gascon expressed his great concern over murkarimi's ability to lead the sheriff's department. he is asking the sheriff to recuse himself from all cases involving domestic violence. murkarimi says that he is looking forward to working together once again with advocates for the victims of domestic violence and proving that he is an ally. reporting live in san francisco, i'm jodi hernandez, nbc bay area news. >> okay, thank you, jodi. okay. the giants refusing to lose, facing elimination once again. the team came through this afternoon in cincinnati. >> yes, they did. just in the past hour, the win sets up a winner take all scenario tomorrow. comcast sportsnet's dave feldman joins us with the exciting

highlights. hi, dave. >> hi, jessica and janelle. the giants story today was supposed to be about starter barry zito. instead it turned out to be new reliever tim lincecum who went 4 1/3, struck out 6, and gave up only one run. he got offensive help early. in game two, a two-run home run. it's his first since july 18th. and the giants led, 3-1. top seven, giants up 6-3. and pablo sandoval murders this ball. a two-run blast. it almost lands in the ohio river. the giants win, 8-. the series is tied two games apiece. the deciding game five will be played tomorrow back in cincinnati. all right. so the giants live to fight another day. the a's in a similar position. for a preview we go to kate longworth at the oakland coliseum. good afternoon, kate. >> reporter: hey, dave. well, it's deja vu all over again, as once again the a's are

facing their biggest game of the season. and really, we've been talking about this for a while now, because the a's played some very meaningful games down the stretch. that's what got them here to the postseason. even though this is a do or die situation, they're not tweaking the game plan. it's still one game at a time. >> we're defying a lot of odds here, you know, of how this team can bounce back, how this team, you know, can battle on this road, how the team -- we've had a whole bunch of stuff thrown at us. the way we beat that is playing oakland a's baseball. >> we can win three. we won three. and we came back from a deficit then. one game at a time. >> we've got a great crowd, a great atmosphere here. so we're not threatening anything. we're just going to go out here and keep doing what we have done all year. >> reporter: and for fans whoever wondered if they could have an impact on the game, the a's players are saying yes, you can.

they say they felt the energy of the soldout crowd last night at the coliseum. that helped fuel their success on the field. bob melvin called the contingency the tenth man. they just want to go out there and make their fans proud. kate longworth, nbc bay area news. >> all right, kate, thanks. we'll have more from the giants clubhouse in cincinnati at 6:00. jessica and janelle, you better start wearing green, because the giants did it. now we need the a's to do it tonight. >> hello, i'm in green! >> all right, thanks, dave. well, still ahead at 5:00, just when you thought it was over, the new hitch that could keep gas prices on the rise for months. also, complicated doping conspiracy with lance armstrong as the ring leader? details of a new report that paints armstrong as allegedly pushing drugs on his teammates. plus, when retail giants battle, it's the consumers who win. the changes coming to an online shopping hub just in time for the holidays. and good afternoon. i'm chief meteorologist jeff

ranieri. this afternoon we tracked a strong, dangerous and severe thunderstorm cell across the south bay that not only produced winds over 50 miles per hour, but quarter-sized hail in gilroy that covered entire lawns and neighborhoods. we're tracking the storms, and i'll have the update coming up.

the death of bay area native ambassador chris stevens is sparking a clash on capitol hill. even before testimony began, democrats accuse republicans of cutting security budgets to the state department, and withholding documents and witnesses. committee chairman darrell issa accused the state department of ignoring pleas from its diplomats in libya to increase security in the months before the attack which killed ambassador stevens and three others. >> sir, we had the correct number of assets in benghazi at the time of 9/11 for what had been agreed upon.

>> saying you had the correct number and our ambassador and three other individuals are dead and people are in the hospital recovering because it only took moments to breach that facility somehow doesn't seem to ring true to the american people. >> the state department says its security staff was appropriate for the threat level at the time, but that the attack on the benghazi consulate was, quote, unprecedented. the chevron refinery in richmond crippled by a fire in august will keep its damaged unit offline for the rest of the year. now chevron didn't really announce that news, it just mentioned it in a regular earnings update release this week. some analysts perceive it as a sign that pump prices will stay high. others were a little more optimistic because california is switching early from its environmentally friendly summer blend of gasoline to a cheaper winter mixture. several lawmakers have called for an investigation and hearings to determine whether the resulting price surge was the result of manipulation by the oil companies. well, a new faster way to

shop online, and perhaps more importantly a faster way to get you to shop for. let's bring in business and tech reporter scott budman. and the holidays around the corner, scott. >> reporter: just in time, jessica. ebay long known for letting you buy and sell items through an auction is really making a play for your online shopping dollars today, rolling out a new way to save, and a new way to get what you want much faster. it's just about that time of year when regular shopping, you know, actually walking around and looking at things transitions to online shopping. a way to avoid the mall. >> because it's so much easier. >> reporter: ebay wants to help you make that transition, revamping its website to offer not only groupon-style daily deals, but also launching a new app where if you're willing to pay $5 an order, you can get same-day shipping on whatever you buy. >> and mobile, we've announced a brand-new app today in the

itunes app store, ebay now, which allows consumers to have items from stores brought to them. it keeps ebay in the league in terms of mobile shopping. >> reporter: it's ebay's way of taking on amazon and walmart. they all know you want what you buy right away. combined with your smartphone, this might be the ultimate in impulse shopping. >> same-day delivery and get sizes that are generally not in stores. you can shop without lines. you don't have to deal with the heat and the headache. absolutely. >> reporter: another reason to leave the car at home and let your fingers do the shopping. the new ebay app, ebay now is test launching in san francisco. while walmart will charge $10 an order for same shipping, ebay will charge $5 an order for its service. janelle? >> thanks, scott. >> you bet. for the second time this week, the bay area can claim a nobel prize. a stanford professor won the award in chemical. brian kobilka and his partner

began their work on protein receptors in 1968. about half of all medications act on these receiptors. so learning about them has allowed pharmaceutical companies to develop better drugs. >> stanford has been a really remarkable place. i'm not really sure how i managed to land here, but i did. as i was telling someone this morning, i think it was the only place that offered me a job. >> he said he got the phone call at 2:30 this morning and five committee members passed the phone around, congratulating him. he said when five people talk to you in swedish accents, you realitize it is not a prank. >> no, not a prank at all. and seeing that hail out there today wasn't a prank either. jeff ranieri joins us now. still a little bit of stormy weather out there. >> that's right. we're continuing to track what was a very dangerous thunderstorm cell moving across the south bay this afternoon from about 3:00 to just about 5:00. again, the past couple of hours moved from gilroy. held up all the way south to los gatos. and right now we're finding still a few pockets of some

heavier rainfall that will be approaching portola valley, also redwood terrace over the next half hour. but not nearly as severe as it was early this afternoon. we may get a stray lightning strike out of this, but not expecting any kind of hail or extremely gusty wind. however, we are not in the clear just yet. while gilroy, who had all of those hail reports this afternoon that we're going to show you coming up is clear at the current moment, take a look at what could be coming your way. what we have done is backed the radar up here. more to the south you can see these thunderstorm cells. they're somewhat long lived, which is somewhat unusual here for california. but the dynamics are right that we could actually see this live up and last again right into gilroy. so you're not into clear yet. it crossed the south bay for this evening. let's get you into these pictures. we really appreciate you sending them in. it helps to tell our story. and this afternoon hail that was large enough to hold in your hands. marble quarter-sized. this one coming in from teresa garcia in gilroy. and then not only enough to put in your hand, but cover streets.

this is really just extremely dangerous what we saw move in this afternoon, covering front lawns, also probably producing some damage here to some of the cars with winds that did top 50 miles per hour as well. so that zone of the heaviest weather came from 3:30 to 4:30 this afternoon in gilroy. but now we're starting to see once again things quiet down for right now, but keep your eyes to the sky as we still could have more stray lightning strikes here this afternoon and also this evening. in the south bay, east bay, and also for the peninsula. you definitely want to seek shelter and head inside. if you hear that thunder, you're close enough to be struck by that lightning. let's take you outside of that live hd sky camera network. we have some lift to the clouds right now across san jose. we may have a few isolated thunderstorms again continuing over the next three to six hours. winds getting kicked up in san francisco. but it's a relatively quiet picture at this hour. now we'll bring you back into the weather boards. what we're going the find over the next 48 hours is the system

that brought us the severe weather. that starts to push off to the south that will give us a small break for thursday before this system out here starts to move in. that will bring us another chance of rain coming in that forecast. so really things have flipped quite a bit across the bay area. so by friday, that's when we look ahead towards our next chance of some showers coming across the bay area. for tomorrow morning, only a very slight isolated chance here of some spotty showers. mainly going to stay on the cloudy side for a lot of the bay area through 6:00 p.m. as you see the clouds staying put. as we head throughout friday, that's when we get the chance of showers beginning back at about 6:00 a.m. not a large storm, but you may need that umbrella again. daytime highs will top out in the low to mid 70s in the north bay. also for the east bay and the south bay. slightly below average, but somewhat comfortable. on your three-day forecast, we'll keep it in the 70s inland thursday, friday, and saturday with the next system arriving on friday into saturday. and then as we head throughout next week, we will have temperatures warming up into the

80s. so some very severe weather down here. i do want to stress again, if a thunderstorm cell does get near you, you hear that thund. >> you definitely want to seek shelter. this is dangerous weather we dealt with this afternoon. >> but take pictures from inside your home and send it to. >> if you can, yes. >> okay, thanks, jeff. good tip. we'll be right back.

cycling great lance armstrong to see evidence against him that proved he used performance-enhancing drugs. today he got it. the u.s. anti-doping agency released more than one thousand pages of sworn testimony from 26 people, including 15 cyclists. 11 of those cyclists were his former teammates. the agency's chief executive says the evidence shows beyond any doubt that armstrong's team ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen. armstrong's attorney dismissed the evidence by saying some of the witnesses named are, quote,

serial perjurers. and we'll be right back.

coming up next on "nightly news," secretary of state hillary clinton is citing the heroism of a teenaged pakistani girl who was shot for speaking out against the taliban. her story has sparked outrage around the world. the supreme court prepares to rule on whether colleges can use race to influence admission recommendations. and we have crazy weather. >> that's right. we're tracking thunderstorms in the south bay. we'll have full details coming up at 6:00 as well. >> looking forward to that. we hope to see you then. bye-bye. have you heard of the new dialing procedure

for the 408 and 669 area codes? no, what is it? starting october 20, 2012, if you have a 408 or 669 number, you'll need to dial 1 plus the area code plus the phone number for all calls. o.k., but what if i have an 408 number and i'm calling a 408 number? you'll still need to dial 1 plus the area code plus the phone number. so when in doubt, dial it out!